Strange Survivals: Some Chapters in the History of Man

by S. Baring-Gould

There is but one, so to speak, natural mode of holding intercourse with the spirits, and that is by ecstasy, whether natural or superinduced by narcotics. The man who falls into hysterics, the man who is cataleptic, is the natural priest. An hysterical, a cataleptic condition, is not understood, and just as the unusual and contorted bit of wood or stone receives reverence as a fetish, so does the man subject to unusual fits become a priest. To him the man of less nervous organism applies when he desires to hold intercourse with the unseen world. Incantation, whereby the hysterical work themselves into hysteria, and religious rite are one. The Shaman or Medicine-man is the only priest.

Indeed, there is not a people, at a low stage of mental and moral development, among which this phase of religion is not found, before the spirit world coagulates into distinct beings, the rudiments of a theology appear, the priesthood emerges as a caste, and worship is fixed in ceremonial observance.

As man advances in the scale of general culture, and thinks more of the unseen world, his reason or fancy, or reason and fancy acting together, become creative; in the protoplastic, nebulous spirit-world points of light appear, the light is divided from the darkness, and the spiritual entities take rank, and assume characteristics. Religion enters on the polytheistic phase.

At the same time the moral sense has advanced; it has seen that there is some relation between the two worlds determined by good and bad. An ethic code is evolved, imposed on man by the superior beings in the world unseen.

But whilst some of the more gifted in a generation attain to this religious and moral conception, there remain others, at the same time, unable to rise, who still occupy the same low level as the earlier men, who are conscious of spiritual forces, but unable to differentiate them, who are lost in a vague dream, incapable of accepting a theologic system, and unwilling to submit to moral restraint. Such men will always turn away from a definite creed, view a priestly caste with suspicion, and kick against an ethical code. To them the Schaman is still the only priest, and delirious ecstasy the only sacrament that unites the worlds. Their psychic development is so rudimentary, that they are ready to accept as consecrated whatever utterance is vented, whatever act is performed in the transport of temporary delirium.

Before proceeding any further with the account of the growth of religion, it will be well here to give an account of Schamanism as it at present exists. For this I will quote a description given by Lieutenant Matjuschin who accompanied Baron Wrangel on his Polar Expedition in 1820-3. Lieutenant Matjuschin visited a Tungu Schaman near the Lena, in 1820.

“In the midst of the gurte (hut) burnt a fire, round which was laid a circle of black sheepskins. On this the Schaman paced, uttering his incantations in an undertone. His black, long, coarse hair nearly covered his dark-red face; from under his bushy eyebrows gleamed a pair of glowing bloodshot eyes. His kirtle of skins was hung with amulets, thongs, chains, bells, and scraps of metal. In his right hand he held his magic drum, like a tambourine, in his left an unstrung bow. By degrees the flame died away; he cast himself on the ground; after five minutes he broke out into a plaintive muffled sound like the moans of several voices. The fire was fanned into a blaze again. The Schaman sprang up, planted his bow on the earth, rested his brow on the upper end, and ran at a rapidly increasing pace round the bow. Suddenly he halted, made signs with his hands in the air, grasped his drum, played a sort of melody on it, leaped and twisted his body into strange contortions, and turned his head about so rapidly that it seemed to us more like a ball attached to the trunk by a string. All at once he fell rigid on the ground; two men whetted great knives over him, he uttered his mournful tones, and moved slowly and convulsively. He was forced upright, and he was as one unconscious, only with a slight quiver in his body; his eyes stared wildly and fixedly out of his head, his face was covered with blood, which poured out with sweat incessantly from his pores. At last, leaning on the bow, he swung the tambourine hastily, clattering over his head, then let it fall to earth. Now he was fully inspired. He stood motionless with lifeless eyes and face; neither the questions put to him, nor the rapid unconsidered answers he gave, produced the slightest alteration in his frozen features. He replied to the queries, of the majority of which he can have had no comprehension, in an oracular style, but with great firmness of assurance. Matjuschin asked how long our journey would last? Answer, ‘Over three years.’ ‘Would we effect much?’ ‘More than was expected at home.’ ‘Should we all keep our health?’ ‘All but you; but you will not be really ill?’ (Matjuschin suffered for a long time with a wound in the throat.) ‘How is Lieutenant Anjou?’ ‘He is three days distant from Bulun, where he has taken refuge, having barely saved his life from a frightful storm on the Lena.’ (This was afterwards found to be true.) Many answers were so vague and poetical as to be unintelligible. When we had done questioning him, the Schaman fell down and remained a quarter of an hour on the ground suffering from violent convulsions. ‘The devils are departing,’ said the Tungu, and opened the door. Then the man awoke as out of a deep sleep, looked about in a bewildered manner, and seemed unconscious of what had taken place.

“At another place a Schaman went into ecstasies. The daughter of the house, a Jakutin, became white, then red, then the bloody sweat broke out, and she fell unconscious on the ground. Matjuschin ordered the Schaman to desist; as he did not, he flung him out of the house, but he continued his leaps and contortions outside in the snow. The girl lay stiff, the lower part of her body swelled, she had cramps, shrieked, wrung her hands, leaped and sang unintelligible words; at last she fell asleep, and when she woke after an hour, knew nothing of what had happened. Her father told us she often had these ecstasies, foretold the future, and sang in the Lamutisch and Tungu languages, which she did not know.”

Matjutschin remarks on what he saw: “The Schamans have been represented as being mere gross deceivers; no doubt this is true of many of them, but the history of others is very different. Born with ardent imaginations and excitable nerves, they grow up amidst a general belief in the supernatural. The youth receives strong impressions and desires to obtain communication with the invisible world. No one teaches him how to do so. A true Schaman is not a cool and ordinary deceiver, but a psychological phenomenon.”